The Delaware Supreme Court recently vacated in part the largest earnout-related damages award in Delaware history, making clear that the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing cannot be used to rescue parties from drafting choices where the relevant regulatory risk was foreseeable at signing, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's recent efforts to shift patentability criteria back toward traditional standards of novelty, obviousness and adequate disclosure should make it easier for emerging tech, including artificial intelligence, to obtain patents, says Bill Braunlin at Barclay Damon.

A recent Eleventh Circuit decision, reviving Florida's lawsuit against a federal rule that reduces Medicaid funding based on agreements between hospitals, sets up a potential circuit split with the Fifth Circuit, with important ramifications for states looking to private administrators to run provider tax programs, say Liz Goodman, Karuna Seshasai and Rebecca Pitt at FTI Consulting.

The federal pullback on environmental justice creates uncertainty and impedes cross‑jurisdictional coordination, but EJ diligence remains prudent risk management, with many states having developed and implemented statutes, screening tools, permitting standards and more, say attorneys at King & Spalding.

President Donald Trump's January executive order directing HieFo to unwind its 2024 acquisition of a semiconductor business with ties to China underscores that even modestly sized transactions can attract CFIUS interest if they could affect strategic areas prioritized by the U.S. government, say attorneys at Debevoise.

An analysis of Institutional Shareholder Services data from the last 10 years shows that preliminarily approved class action settlements are unlikely to be denied in the final-approval stage, while procedural delays are more common than withdrawal or termination, says Rahul Chhabra at Charles River Associates.

With the July effective date for California's Digital Financial Assets Law fast approaching, now is a critical time for companies to prepare for licensure, application and coverage compliance ahead of this significant regulatory milestone that will reshape how digital asset businesses operate in California, say attorneys at MoFo.

An active election year is the perfect time for in-house counsel to conduct a health check on their company's corporate political law compliance program to ensure it’s prepared to minimize risks related to electoral engagement, lobbying, pay-to-play laws and government ethics rules, say attorneys at Steptoe.

A soon-to-be-finalized U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rule, which would hand responsibility for determining disparate impact liability under the Fair Housing Act to the courts, reinforces the Trump administration’s wider rollback of fair lending enforcement, yet there are reasons to expect litigation challenging this change, say attorneys at Spencer Fane.

The Eighth Circuit's recent decision in Home Depot v. National Labor Relations Board, finding that Home Depot legally prohibited an employee from displaying Black Lives Matter messaging on his uniform, reaffirms employers' right to restrict politically sensitive material, but should not be read as a blank check, say attorneys at Hunton.

A recent North Carolina decision, PDII v. Sky Aircraft, demonstrates how the U.S. Supreme Court's consequential jurisdiction decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern may permit suits against insurers anywhere they do business so long as the forum state has a business registration statute that requires submitting to in-state lawsuits, says Christopher Popecki at Pillsbury.

Recent decisions from courts across the country demonstrate how different jurisdictions balance competing policy interests in determining whether legal malpractice claims can be assigned, providing a framework to identify when and how to challenge any attempted assignment, says Christopher Blazejewski at Sherin & Lodgen.

The Eighth Circuit's recent decision in Choreo v. Lors, overturning a lower court's sweeping injunction after financial advisers moved to a new firm, gives advisers new strategies to fight restraining orders from their old firms, such as focusing on whether the alleged irreparable harm is calculable, say attorneys at Kutak Rock.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's recently announced closure, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied relief from an injunction mandating that the newspaper restore terms from its previous collective bargaining agreement, illustrates that prematurely declaring an impasse and implementing unilateral changes carries risk, says Sunshine Fellows at Freeman Mathis.

Environmental justice is enduring a federal dormancy brought on by executive branch reversals and agency directives over the past year that have swept long-standing federal frameworks from the formal policy ledger, but the legal underpinnings of EJ have not vanished and remain important, say attorneys at King & Spalding.

The Senate Banking Committee's decision to delay markup of the Clarity Act, which would establish a comprehensive federal framework for digital assets, illuminates the political and structural obstacles that shape U.S. crypto regulation, despite years of bipartisan calls for regulatory clarity, says David Zaslowsky at Baker McKenzie.

A California federal judge's recent approval of a Section 1782 application, compelling a U.S.-based company to produce materials relevant to a German patent dispute, usefully illustrates the specific steps foreign litigants must undertake before wielding this powerful tool for obtaining evidence unavailable via discovery mechanisms abroad, say attorneys at Fish & Richardson.

The ongoing rebuild of the Francis Scott Key Bridge is an example of a construction megaproject that may call for project-specific professional liability insurance, a specialized product that must be negotiated with care, especially when it comes to its multiple claims provisions, say attorneys at Maslon.

In a rare move, three federal courts recently quashed or partially quashed expansive U.S. Department of Justice administrative subpoenas issued to providers of gender-affirming care, demonstrating that courts will scrutinize purpose, cabin statutory authority and acknowledge the profound privacy burdens of overbroad government demands for sensitive records, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.